102 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



words, and the consequence is that they differ from one another to a 

 degree of which the Ai'yan scholar has no idea, and which makes it 

 impossible to compare them in the very loose way Prof. Campbell has 

 attempted. The basis of the classification of the Turanian languages 

 has hitherto been according to the employment of pronominal affixes, 

 but this is an nnsatisfactory and very meagre mode of arriving at a 

 classification. Max Miiller says : " To maintain a word and not to 

 allow it to be replaced by a new expression was possible in the Aryan, 

 that is in a social state of the language, not among nomad tribes, who, 

 living only for the present, were little concerned about the past or 

 future, without history, without ambition ; and thus we find that the 

 number of common words is very small." Schott says : " We ought 

 not to despair about the affinity of these languages, the Turanian, 

 although the words for the most necessary ideas in them are so essen- 

 tially different. To Prof. Campbell, however, the Turanian languages 

 present no difficulty whatever, and he proves their afiinity with one 

 another by long lists of words, which he says are identical in Basque 

 and Eti'uscan, in Japanese and Circassian, in Hittite and Chocktaw, 

 in Iroquois and Aztec. We trust Prof. Campbell will pardon us if 

 we prefer the judgment of Mtiller and Schott, and of a score of other 

 Turanian scholars to his judgment, and if we express a very strong- 

 doubt as io the value of his researches and his very remarkable con- 

 clusions. 



And now a few words regarding the Etruscan alphabet, its origin, 

 some of its peculiarities, and the extent of country over which it pre- 

 vailed, and a short statement of what is genei'ally received concerning 

 the origin of the Etruscans. The town of Chalcis in Eubcea was one 

 of the oldest of the Phoenician colonies, and received from Phoenicia 

 the alphabet, which it adopted with very little change. When Chalcis 

 became an Ionic possession it still retaii:ied its alphabet, which is 

 more closely connected with the old Phoenician than any other of the 

 Greek alphabets. Shortly after Chalcis became Ionic it entered into 

 rivalry with Miletus for commercial and colonial supremacy. Miletus 

 acquired a supremacy in Eastern Europe, in the -i^Egean, and the 

 Euxine ; while Chalcis turned to Italy and the West. Cumae was 

 founded by a colony from Chalcis, and became a centre from which 

 Greek learning, Greek culture, and the Greek Chalcidian alphabet 

 were communicated to the rest of Italy. Etruria early received its 

 alphabet from this source and an examination of the Etruscan letters 



